World's Most Generous People

The world of philanthropy is buzzing today with news that Microsoft's Bill Gates and Berkshire Hathaway's Warren Buffett are asking American billionaires to pledge at least half of their fortunes to charity, either in life or upon death.

While pledging is certainly a potentially generous step, what really matters is not what one promises to give away but what one hands over, an irrevocable gift. When we calculate the list of the Forbes 400, we don't subtract their promised philanthropic gifts until it is out of their hands and their foundation's hands (this is particularly important to note if they still control the foundation's purse strings).

Last summer we did an interesting piece looking at perhaps the most exclusive subset of the world's wealthiest: those living philanthropists who had at that point given away $1 billion or more. Only 14 people in the world made the cut for this list of Billion-Dollar Donors, and only 11 of the world's then 793 billionaires, just about 1%. The other three donors, including SAP co-founder Dietmar Hopp, had fallen out of the ranks due to their generosity.

Gates led the list by almost an order of magnitude and so it is not surprising he is leading billionaires into philanthropy, starting with his good friend Warren Buffett, who had no record of giving until a few years ago and who apparently was influenced to give during his lifetime by Gates. The Microsoft chairman also seems to be rubbing off on the world's richest man, Carlos Slim Helu. The two just held a press conference earlier this week to announce big donations to combat poverty in Mexico and Central America.

As Forbes editor William Baldwin said almost four years ago, the "rivalry in (yacht) size is giving way to rivalry in charitable endeavors." That certainly does seem preferable but these billionaires should act as they see fit, and talk less about pledging and do more about giving. We will be publishing our newest list of world's most generous people this summer and hope to see more than 14 names on it.